


Ghost of Christmas Past

by captainflintsjacket



Category: Marvel
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, angst central station
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 18:04:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20440223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainflintsjacket/pseuds/captainflintsjacket
Summary: Based (loosely) off the prompt “Character A returns to their birth-town for the holidays. Character B is their estranged childhood best friend”





	Ghost of Christmas Past

The wind whispered warnings as you looked over your childhood playground, reminiscing of sandcastles and the pine cone monsters that attacked them. Every second you stood in the cold was another second your heart broke. You could still feel the sand between your fingers and hear the boys’ laughter. Together you made up your own band of three misfit musketeers.

Steve was always the leader, despite being five foot nothing and skinnier than a twig. He more than made up for it with his personality - always picking fights and standing up for the little guys (though there wasn’t much standing up when his head barely cleared the other guy’s chest). But that’s why he had Bucky.

Bucky was the opposite of Steve in almost every way. Tall, suave, devout pacifist, unless you or Stevie were in trouble. Then he was a force to be reckoned with. He could tap into some deep well of inner rage and send even the biggest bullies packing. One night in the middle of summer, as the three of you stared up at the night sky, Bucky admitted that it scared him sometimes.

Which is where you came in: the nurturer, the peacekeeper. You were the happy medium between Steve’s reckless courage and Bucky’s ruthless brawn. It was your unspoken duty to keep everyone calm, happy, and safe. You weren’t quite sure where that went wrong.

The wind ran its cold fingers through your hair, sending a shiver down your spine like an electric shock. How long had you been standing there, a statue guarding what few precious memories you had left? Maybe it was a mistake coming back after all.

Ten years didn’t seem like such a long time, just enough for everything to fall apart. Enough for the pain to feel less desperate, no longer the ravenous animal clawing at your chest and ripping your heart to pieces but a dull growl in your ear when you tried to fall asleep, saying you could have been more, could have done more, done something. Instead you ran like Steve ran. Like Bucky always dreamed of running.

Suddenly, as if propelled by the ghost of a pain you never could quite shake, you were standing there again: the corner of Maple and Evergreen. The only bus stop out of town. You stood next to Steve, weighed down by bags almost as big as he was. The air between you was thick and stagnant and you wondered, not for the first time that day, how things had come to this. Steve leaving. You unable to even look him in the eye but also unable to let him wait alone. There were so many things you were bursting to tell him but every ounce of fire in you was smother by the time it reached your throat, so the two of you stood in silence until the bus came roaring up the hill to claim Steve. In that moment, it was scarier than any monster that had ever lived under your bed, and, as you watched Steve get on without looking back, it left you twice as lonely.

You fought past the burning in your throat, bringing yourself back to reality. There was no use reminiscing. It wouldn’t bring either of them back. You straightened your back and closed your eyes, as if you didn’t still see them every time you blinked. As if you didn’t see Steve’s smile in every streetlight or hear Bucky’s laughter on a warm wind. Every inch of this town breathed with them, which is why you felt like you were suffocating.

You loosened the top button of your jacket and kept your eyes trained firmly on the ground, dragging your feet to stir up the snow. You could almost feel it dripping down every patch of exposed skin as you, Bucky, and Steve wrapped up yet another snowball fight. You and Buck always let Steve win. After all, victory didn’t matter much when the three of you spent the rest of the afternoon curled up next to each other with cocoa and movies.

Steve would fall asleep first, head in your lap while you stroked his hair. You and Bucky would stay up a little longer talking about everything and nothing. What you wanted to do after high school. What kind of fruit you thought you would be. Most often, you’d talk about leaving. Finally getting out of this dead end town.

The plan was New York. Steve wanted to be an artist and there wasn’t a better school in his eyes than NYU. It was perfect, because you had your sights set on Columbia. Bucky, on the other hand, wasn’t sure yet what he wanted to do. Maybe architecture. Maybe culinary school. The only thing he was sure of was that he would follow you and Steve to the ends of the earth if he had to, and more than anything you wanted him to. It would have made those first semester easier.

You reached into your pocket, pulling out the small die cast Statue of Liberty you’d picked up at the airport. You could almost hear Bucky’s voice teasing you, saying, “You went all the way to New York and this is all I get?” But you knew he would have put it on his bookshelf as soon as he got home. He had a shrine of souvenirs just like this, reminding him that there was a whole world outside this town. A world with more than one traffic light and paved driveways.

The snow was starting to sting your knees, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care as you set the model down in front of you. It was a bright pop of green against the white earth and brown flowers. You ran your fingers over the stone, hoping that maybe now, after ten years, it would somehow feel real but it still felt like a dream. You could see your fingers move but the feeling was far away, as if it was someone else’s hand caressing the inscription:

James Buchanan Barnes.  
1982-1998.

Suddenly, you were seventeen again, laying in your bed in the dead of night. Something woke you up, but you couldn’t remember what. A dream? No, a noise. Knocking. Then, a door opening. Floor boards creaking. A chair scraping against the floor. Whispering words you couldn’t make out but in a tone that made your heart leap to your throat. You crept out of your room to hear better.

“We’ll need to talk to her.” A voice you didn’t recognize.

“I’m not sure she’ll be in any state to talk when she finds out…” Your mother, voice catching on the brink of tears.

“I can tell her. It’s my job.” You saw the glint of a sheriff’s star catching the kitchen light.

“Tell me what?” Every eye in the room snapped to you standing in the doorway, a picture of youthful innocence in bare feet and dinosaur print pajamas.

Your father stood, placing a hand on your mother’s shoulder. She pinched her eyes shut and you saw a tear fall. “There’s been an accident,” your father said, voice steadier than his hands.

“What kind of accident?”

The officer stood. “At the quarry. A body was found. We don’t know what happened, exactly, but it, um….It was Bucky.”

You watched the officer’s mouth move but every word he said was drowned by the buzzing in your ears, in your head, in every nerve in your body. You felt like you were on fire and frozen all at once. It was like your spirit left your body, flying over the town to the quarry, to the spot you knew Bucky liked to sit and watch the stars. The rocks stretched out before you like the blanket he kept hidden there and you could see every star reflected in his eyes. A sinister voice slithered through your mind, casting every memory you had with Bucky into shadow: did he fall or did he jump?

Without warning, you bolted from the house. You heard your parents calling after you but didn’t dare stop, as if running would keep your thoughts from catching up. Your bare feet slammed against the gravel of the driveway but the pain was far away. There was only one thing that mattered now: Steve.

The blinking lights of the cop car made every shadow dance mournfully across the lawn. The door flew open as Steve tore out of it like a devil out of the gates of Hell. He didn’t have far to run as you rounded the corner and the two of you curled around each other, pulling each other close enough you could almost pretend you didn’t feel the empty space where Bucky’s arms would be.

Then, you were in a police car, both still in pajamas, on your way to the station. Then you were in a morgue, shivering less from cold than from fear, looking at the face of your best friend. Then, you were 18, throwing off the covers in your bed as you gasped for air, still able to picture the way Bucky’s arm stuck out at odd angles even under the sheet, the way his eyes stared not at you but through you to the emptiest parts of your mind and you wondered if the nightmares would ever stop. If you really wanted them to, since it was the only way you could see Bucky now.

“How long have you been sitting here?” A voice asked, soft and sad but without pity.

You wiped your eyes hurriedly and loosed a hollow laugh. “I don’t know actually. I just got lost in thought.” You stood, but your knees buckled beneath you and the weight of your grief. A pair of strong arms reached out to grab you before you hit the ground. You shook as much snow off yourself as you could, mumbling a thank you before looking up at the stranger and time seemed to stop.

You could hardly believe it was Steve. He was twice the size, all muscle and height now, and, yet, when you looked in his eyes you saw the same world-weary gaze of a man who knew too much pain. He smiled the same goofy half grin he only ever gave you and Bucky and, even if you didn’t know how, you knew it was Steve.

“Come on, it’s cold out. Why don’t we go get some coffee?” You nodded and he threw an arm around your shoulder, shielding you from most of the wind.

The diner was almost empty, and the Christmas music coming from the jukebox in the corner made the silence between you and Steve more painful. You poked half-heartedly at the plate of waffles in the middle of the table while Steve looked out the window, hoping maybe he’d find something to say.

Finally, you dropped the fork along with your pretenses and looked at Steve. “Why are you here?”

Steve looked down at his coffee, the fluorescent lights highlighting the bags under his eyes. “Why are you here?”

“I have family here still.”

“I have family here, too.” He looked at you, then, and you felt the pieces of your heart swell for a moment.

In your head, your voice was confident but when it came out it sounded more like a lost child: “You left.” It was your turn to avoid eye contact.

Steve reached across the table for your hand but you pulled away, hiding your hands in your lap. He sighed, fidgeting with the corner of a napkin instead. “I had to. Everywhere I look I just….”

“See Bucky,” you finished. You looked up and Steve nodded. You watched him tear at the napkin edges and noticed the roughness of his hands. You reached out and took them in yours, wondering when they stopped being so soft.

“You didn’t go to NYU.”

“No, I went to Brooklyn. Joined the Army.”

“And a gym by the looks of it.”

Steve laughed. You’d missed the sound. “Yeah, Stark’s Gym. I work there now, actually.” Steve turned your hands over, tracing a finger along your palm. “What about you?”

“Columbia. Like we always talked about. I wanted to invite you to graduation, but I…,” you but your bottom lip, pulling your hands back again. You took a breath to steady yourself and looked out the window. “I haven’t heard from you in years, Stevie. You could’ve been dead too, and I never would have known.”

“I know, I-”

“Do you? You were in Brooklyn this whole time. That’s a 45 minute trip to upper Manhattan and you never once made it.

“And I want to make up for that. If you’ll let me.” Steve reached across the table, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. His thumb brushed your cheek and, despite your anger, you let yourself melt into his touch. “Come on, kid. Whaddya say?”

“Just because you grew a few inches doesn’t mean you get to call me kid.”

“No? How about being born two days before you?”

You rolled your eyes, mouth pulling up into a smile you weren’t sure you could make anymore. “Shut up, grandpa.”

Steve laughed the same deep-bellied laugh you’ve missed, and, for a second, you saw the same impish glint in Steve’s eyes that always signalled trouble when you were kids. You smiled back and suggested you go see a movie, not wanting to part ways just yet. The two of you slid out of the booth leaving a third mug of cocoa sitting on the table untouched.


End file.
